Phuket student-visa crackdown begins

Phuket student-visa crackdown begins

PHUKET: The crackdown on foreigners fraudulently using student visas as a way to stay in the country long term began in Phuket yesterday (May 3), with inspections of three language schools in the south of the island.

The campaign began at 1pm with officers conducting inspections of the TTT Language School near Chalong Pier, the LinguaPlus Language School just south of Chalong Circle and the Phuket Rawai Language School in Baan Bangkontee, Rawai.

Capt Ekkachai Siri of the Phuket Tourist Police confirmed to The Phuket News today that no irregularities were discovered at any of the three language schools.

“We checked that the venues had current, valid business registration licences and certificates from the Ministry of Education allowing them to operate as language schools,” Capt Ekkachai said.

“We also checked the passports and visas of all the teachers and the students enrolled in courses at the schools,” he said.

“We were checking for overstays and we check the attendance records to ensure the foreigners enrolled in the courses were actually attending the classes,” Cap Ekkachai explained.

“We will continue with more inspections of other language schools elsewhere across the island next week,” he added.

Capt Ekkachai warned on Monday (April 30) that the raids were coming in the wake of raids carried out on 74 international schools in Bangkok last week to bust foreigners who had overstayed their visas, in an operation called X-Ray Outlaw Foreigner. (See story here.)

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I worked in a pub in Berlin once where we had a lot of military personal as regulars, English and USArmy ... when ever there was a problem and someone called the MP, they switched on the ALARM sirens when just a km away, so the guys making trouble before, have plenty of time to run :D :D :D
Well done Thai government!

Kurt |
04 May 2018 - 19:55:37

No outlaw foreigners will be discovered via the Phuket language schools.
Phuket RTP will not find a single outlaw foreign student.
All schools paperwork will be in good order, schools had time enough this week to have it ready as required after advanced check warnings.
Yes, wonder why RTP not check the Muay Thai training centers administrations without a warning in advance.

BenPendejo |
04 May 2018 - 18:38:52

WoW!...no irregularities...!!! HUGE surprise !!!... Good thing that Thai officials gave them ample warning that they were coming, otherwise I would guess that there desired outcome would have had different results. Just another dog and pony show...replete with photo ops. Just a hint... if you really want to catch the bad guys, don't tell them you're coming.